


February, 1963

by Nyssa



Category: Monty Python RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-27
Updated: 2010-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry and Michael keep warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	February, 1963

**Author's Note:**

> The winter of 1962-1963 was England's coldest in well over 200 years. Blizzard followed blizzard, gale force winds howled, and temperatures hovered close to zero Fahrenheit (or -18 C, whichever you prefer). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_United_Kingdom_cold_wave for more info.

He gets up in the middle of the night to use the toilet down the passage. It's freezing, and he's naked, and if he wasn't afraid of attracting attention to himself, an upperclassman in a hall he doesn't belong in, he'd swear loudly and fervently all the way there and back. Instead, he makes it the fastest pee he can, and hurries back to the tiny room and the narrow bed piled high with blankets and coats and blessedly full of Michael. He slips in as noiselessly as possible, sighing with gratitude as the cold recedes. He turns carefully on his side, putting him back to back with Michael, and gathers the covers closer around himself. But his attempts at silence are in vain. He feels Mike stir, sigh, and turn over, nestling against him from behind, sliding a warm arm across his body.

"You ought to put something on," Michael murmurs. His breath stirs the hairs at the back of Terry's neck. "You're cold."

Terry shivers slightly. Funny that one can shiver from heat as well as cold. "Why don't _you_ put something on?" He feels Michael's bare skin pressed to his from neck to toes.

Mike snuggles even closer. "Don't want to. 'S nice like this."

Terry smiles. "Exactly."

He's getting warm now, thank Christ, but he doesn't go back to sleep. He lies buried in layers of fabric and flesh, and breathes against the blanket that covers his face. It makes a little pocket of heat that warms his nose.

He wonders if it's still snowing. There's no way to tell other than to go outdoors and look, and he's damned if he'll leave this bed again any sooner than absolutely necessary. Another reason to sneak Mike into his own room from now on. The upperclassmen's rooms have windows.

"D'you think they'll cancel chapel tomorrow?" He feels Michael's voice as much as hears it, a gentle hum against his back.

"Don't know. If the heat plays up again, they will."

"Will you go if they don't?"

Terry considers. "No. To hell with it. Bloody medieval requirement anyway."

Mike laughs softly. His dad is a bell ringer, Terry remembers him saying once. He's probably heard all the church bells he ever wants to hear.

Terry smiles to himself. Tomorrow's Sunday. If there's no chapel, there won't be anywhere else to go, either. He pictures a world buried in white, snow piled meters deep over cars and buildings and the spires of Oxford and all of England and the whole bloody universe, damn it. Why not? He'll just stay in bed with Michael.

He's twenty-one now, as of just a week ago. The age of majority, the age at which one is officially considered a man. He'd celebrated with Michael, of course, in this very room. He'd watched Michael's eyes whilst he opened his present (uncertain, a bit apprehensive over whether he'd like it), and whilst they drank numerous toasts to adulthood (shining, laughing, happy), and later whilst they lay under the blankets together, tired and hot and spent, and those eyes had looked into his and Michael had touched his face and said things to him that he has since repeated silently to himself, over and over again, like a beloved poem, or a charm, or a prayer.

He knows that as an adult, he should be past the stage of schoolboy crushes. He should forget about beautiful hazel-eyed boys and think about finding a nice girl and having a family. Even a year ago, he could have done it. Now it would be like cutting out his heart.

"Listen," Michael whispers.

Terry listens. The wind's whipping up again, whistling over the eaves, moaning round the corners of the building, rattling the rooftop.

"Sounds like a ghost, doesn't it? Like a ghost outside that wants in."

Terry snorts with amusement. "You're daft."

Mike laughs against his shoulder. "You just have no imagination."

But he does. Terry can imagine his whole life spread out before him, a lifetime spent reading, and writing, and performing, and making people laugh. All the things that make him feel alive. But he can't imagine any of it anymore without Michael.

He takes Michael's hand and laces their fingers together. "Go to sleep," he says softly.

He feels the welcome warmth of Mike's breath as he sighs, and the tiny, feathery brush of lashes as he closes his eyes and settles against Terry's body for the night.

Terry raises Michael's hand to his mouth and kisses each finger lightly before releasing it. He lies quietly and listens to the rising wind and tries to match the rhythm of his heartbeat to Michael's, slow and strong and even against his back. He keeps his eyes closed and tries not to move, not to think, not to remember that spring will ever come.


End file.
